[Annotator's Note: This clip begins with Irwin Medway talking with the interviewer about his current life and classes he takes until 0:03:10.000.] Irwin Medway was born in Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. He went into the business world and transferred around a number of cities in the Northeast. His mother died when he was ten years old. Medway looks at his life in chapters. His father was in the meat business. Medway's older brother was a captain in the Air Force in the Pacific. He was a radioman on an aircraft that was part of Secretary Stimson's [Annotator's Note: Henry Lewis Stimson; American statesman and politician, Secretary of War from 1940 to 1945] transportation group. They went into Columbia, South Carolina to pick up Winston Churchill [Annotator's Note: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill; Prime Minister, United Kingdom, 1940 to 1945] who had the same birthday as his brother. They corresponded. His brother's name was Marvin Medway. His brother had Clark Gable [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Major William Clark Gable; American military officer and film actor] in his class at OCS [Annotator's Note: officer candidate school]. Medway was walking with a friend in Atlantic City [Annotator's Note: Atlantic City, New Jersey] and girl told another that she was going to marry Medway. He learned this later in life after he did marry her. [Annotator's Note: Medway shows a picture of them to the camera.] Medway graduated from the high school that Wilt Chamberlain [Annotator's Note: Wilton Norman Chamberlain, American professional basketball player] later graduated from. His brother had enlisted after Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Medway knew he would be drafted and waited to be called. After high school, he could not afford to go to college. He regrets that. He went to work in Sun Shipyard [Annotator's Note: Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company] in Chester, Pennsylvania as a ship fitter. Medway would not have had to go serve but he could not walk down the streets and have mothers wonder why he was walking around when their sons were at war.

Irwin Medway was drafted on 18 January 1943 and was to report to basic training. After basic, he was sent to Camp Tyson, Tennessee [Annotator's Note: in Paris, Tennessee] and was attached to a barrage balloon [Annotator's Note: large, tethered kite balloon used to defend ground targets against aircraft attack] unit. [Annotator's Note: Medway shows a picture of one to the camera.] They were meant to entangle Stuka bombers [Annotator's Note: German Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber]. He was part of the artillery. He went from PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class] to T/5 Corporal [Annotator's Note: US Army Technician Fifth Grade or T5; equivilent to a corporal; E-4] and did not have to do KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] anymore. [Annotator's Note: Medway shows a scrapbook page with his rank insignia to the camera.] He was a pretty good shot with the M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] and won a contest. His father had remarried [Annotator's Note: Medway's mother died when he was ten]. His father worried all the time. His stepmother had a child of her own who wound up in the Navy but never went overseas. Medway has lived history. He talks to children about World War 2 and tells them that aging is worthwhile. He was at Camp Tyson and got a seven-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He went home and saw his girlfriend. He got a telegram after three days. At Camp Tyson, he had taken a general intelligence test before going on leave. The telegram said to report to duty on 13 June [Annotator's Note: 13 June 1943] back at Camp Tyson. He was accepted into an Army Specialized Training Program at Saint Bonaventure in New York [Annotator's Note: Saint Bonaventure University, Saint Bonaventure, New York]. They did drills and exercises. They got some weekends off to attend local dances. He had no rank in the program and was returned to Private. They had good meals. About three or four months in, there was a space at Rutgers in New Brunswick [Annotator's Note: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey] which was close to his home. He was there another three months. General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] sent a letter to the men in school. [Annotator's Note: Medway reads the letter.] The letter discontinued the program. Some guys got transferred to other units like artillery or tanks, but Medway ended up with the 104th Infantry [Annotator's Note: Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] in Adair, Oregon [Annotator's Note: Camp Adair, Corvallis, Oregon]. Most of the officers had never seen combat. The General in charge was Terry Allen [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General Terry de la Mesa "Terrible Terry" Allen, Sr.] who had been in charge of the 1st Division [Annotator's Note: 1st Infantry Division]. Medway had heard the 1st Division had more casualties than any other division, so he was not looking forward to Terry Allen being his commander.

Irwin Medway was sent to Colorado Springs to Camp Carson [Annotator's Note: now Fort Carson, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 5 August 1943] to take basic training all over again [Annotator's Note: with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division]. He became a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class]. He weighed 137 pounds and was fairly fast. He was assigned as the runner for Lieutenant Tom Lacey. [Annotator's Note: Medway shows a group picture of Company L to the camera.] He was in the 414th Regiment. Lacey was the only First Lieutenant and was their commander. Medway made friends with Guido DeMarco [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. [Annotator's Note: Medway shows a picture of some men and talks about some of them.] One guy used to challenge the other soldiers to take a knife from him and no one could. During combat once, they were trying to take a hill and Medway saw him for a second, and then never saw him again. They went overseas in a 57-ship convoy to Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France, 7 September 1944]. Medway has something in common with Adolf Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. Hitler was a runner in World War 1. The runner takes the instructions from the commander to the platoon leaders. One of his first battles was on a slanted road. Lacey was in front. Mortar shells started coming in. Lacey was killed and Medway lost his helmet and rifle. Medway was yelling to the men behind to not stop and to take shelter. DeMarco told him years later that Medway was a hero. Medway got up to shelter in a house. Their communications sergeant was captured. The captain was wounded 22 times. Medway became communications sergeant. They were in Le Havre and then moved up to join the 1st Canadian Army to relieve Antwerp [Annotator's Note: Antwerp, Belgium, 23 October 1944]. Artillery or mortar fire came into the trees over their heads. Shrapnel hit him in the head. He got to the 100th Evacuation Hospital [Annotator's Note: in Belgium] where his shrapnel was removed. Medway was not shocked. In combat, he thought he would die every day. His father got a telegram informing him he was slightly wounded in action. His father contacted his brother to try and find out what happened to him.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip Irwin Medway looks at photographs, mostly off-camera, and talks about the men in them. It is difficult to establish time or place.] Medway liked Charley Tyson [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] who was the mess sergeant [Annotator's Note: in Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division]. He would let him in the kitchen area to have coffee. Norman Carlinsky [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] became a source of warmth for Medway, who would cuddle up to him. Carlinsky was killed, and he was the only one Medway cried about. Medway had been sent to the rear area for rest. The men showed Medway Carlinsky's helmet which had a big hole in it. [Annotator's Note: Medway shows pictures of the men to the interviewer.] Every time they went into reserve, they would get another uniform. Medway never got frostbite. They started out with leggings, but then got good boots. They took fire on the way to Antwerp [Annotator's Note: Antwerp, Belgium, October 1944]. [Annotator's Note: Medway reads a letter from Dick Bennett (phonetic spelling) that describes when Medway was hit by artillery fire.] Dick Bennett was a hero to Medway. Bennett later attended Dartmouth [Annotator's Note: Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire] and was a colonel in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. They had a lot of Native Indians [Annotator's Note: Native Americans] in their unit, and they were great fighters. Later, General Lawton Collins [Annotator's Note: US Army General J. Lawton "Lightening Joe" Collins] was in charge. This was November 1944. It was cold and raining. It snowed off and on. In the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], there was snow on the ground. He was in reserve. They had no idea of the grand scope of the battle. They were hunkered down. He was communications sergeant and was with the captain all the time. The radio man carried a large radio with a large battery. They attacked and took a factory. They had a forward artillery observer. There was a big Tiger tank [Annotator's Note: Tiger I, Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E, German heavy tank] down the street. It would shoot into their building at will. The observer was directing fire to keep the tank away. Bazookas [Annotator's Note: man-portable recoilless anti-tank weapon] stunk and could not knock anything out. They stayed there all night. The next day they sent to get a new battery. Medway sent a guy and told him how to return. He thought he heard the guy coming back the wrong way. He yelled to go around the back, but it was four Germans who fired at him. The other guys said that Medway screwed up the whole thing. They got their battery and put it in a corner. They were ordered to retreat. They went back the next morning. He found the battery with a bullet hole in it. The captain had told Medway to pick up the wires after the attack was over to reuse it. Medway said it would risk lives to do that. The captain relieved Medway of his duties and put him in charge of two light .30s [Annotator's Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun] and mortars.

Irwin Medway was the runner for his unit [Annotator's Note: Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division]. The communications did not work otherwise. He was later in charge of two light .30s [Annotator's Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun] and two mortars. During the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], they were on the outside and lobbed mortars all day long. They had access to spring water, and they would go out to keep them from freezing. On Christmas [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944], they had a full dinner. When they were relieved at Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium], and when the breakthrough at Remagen [Annotator's Note: Battle of Remagen, Remagen, Germany, 7 to 25 March 1945] happened, he rarely saw any American tanks. They crossed the Remagen bridge [Annotator's Note: Ludendorff Bridge, also known as Bridge at Remagen] on the tanks of the 3rd Armored [Annotator's Note: 3rd Armored Division] led by Maurice Rose [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General Maurice Rose] who was killed in the attack [Annotator's Note: near Paderborn, Germany, 30 March 1945]. The orders were to go as far and as fast as they could without stopping. There was a sniper in Halle [Annotator's Note: Halle, Germany, 15 to 19 April 1945] and they got out to protect the tanks. There was no German resistance when they were crossing the bridge. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs up and asks Medway if there was a lot of homesickness at the Christmas dinner.] There was never any homesickness because there was never time. Medway thought he would never get home anyway. He does not recall having emotions about home. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer talks about another interview with a soldier who did.] Medway never felt that way.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip Irwin Medway looks at photographs, mostly off-camera, and reads from articles he has in a scrapbook.] They [Annotator's Note: Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] were on their way to the Nordhausen concentration camp [Annotator's Note: Nordhausen sub-camp of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, Nordhausen, Germany, 11 April 1945]. They did not know it was a concentration camp. Later he found out the V2 rockets [Annotator's Note: German Vergeltungswaffe 2, or Retribution Weapon 2, ballistic missile] were being built underground. When he entered, he saw the concentration camp guards and was handed a swastika [Annotator's Note: symbol adopted by Nazi Party in 1920]. The guards were SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] and took off. He saw the corpses lined up to go the crematory. It was a forced labor camp. They were not necessarily Jews. They were whoever they picked up who were not pure Germans. These people were subjects and not citizens. Medway is Jewish. He was in disbelief. The people were like skeletons. He never had a conversation as they were not allowed to do anything but get them out and then get back on the tank. They did not do anything to help them. Their job as infantrymen was to get to the Russians as fast as they could. They had heard of the camps but were never where the big ones were. There were Poles [Annotator's Note: people of Polish descent], Gypsies [Annotator's Note: term for Romani, people originating in South Asia and traditionally having an itinerant way of life; now a derogatory term], the mentally ill, and homosexuals. The German Army was a good army. They had better machine guns and tanks. They had better hand grenades and they were very arrogant. They captured some. Medway would tell them he was Juden [Annotator's Note: German for Jewish] and tell them the Russians were coming. They were very afraid of the Russians. Medway learned that in the Battle of Stalingrad [Annotator's Note: Battle of Stalingrad, Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russia, 23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943], 600,000 men were lost.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip Irwin Medway looks at photographs, mostly off-camera, and reads statistics from articles and books he has in a scrapbook.] Irwin Medway says if the enemy is in range, so are you. His unit [Annotator's Note: Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] made the newspapers when they were in Cologne [Annotator's Note: Köln, Germany; 3 to 7 March 1945]. Medway's company was in the lead crossing the city. All the second lieutenants were young and had not seen combat. One day for no reason, about five years ago, Medway called Lieutenant Tyde [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify], who started to cry. His wife got on the phone and told him Tyde was not feeling well. Tyde sent Medway a thank-you note for the phone call. He died shortly after that. When the war was over, they got a 30 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He stayed in Germany for 30 days awaiting transport. All of their equipment was shipped to California. They were going to get trained to go into Tokyo Bay [Annotator's Note: Tokyo Bay, Japan for Operation Downfall; proposed Allied plan for the invasion of Japan]. He was to be there by 15 August 1945. He got home about 15 July [Annotator's Note: 15 July 1945] and on 22 July [Annotator's Note: 22 July 1945] he got married. When the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] were dropped, he was at home. Someone asked him how he felt about it. The casualty figure for the invasion of Japan was one million for each side. He was still home when the Japanese surrendered but he still had to report to California. The ship he came home on needed repairs, and it took a long time. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Medway if the feelings were different for the Japanese than the Germans.] Medway says the feelings came later after finding out about how cruel the Japanese were. The Wehrmacht [Annotator's Note: German Army] were not Nazis mostly. The Japanese were all brutal. The Germans wanted to carry out the war. Medway saw a man, his wife, and child blown up in a small Volkswagen [Annotator's Note: German automobile] and that made him sad. When they attacked Hill 287 [Annotator's Note: near Stolberg Germany, late 1944], the Germans were guarding a building where a couple was lying on the ground. He does not think any combat man stopped to see if someone was dead. You had to keep going. It never dawned on Medway that he would be seeing these things and be a part of it. Kill or be killed were just words to him. When it was happening, it was surreal. There were so many rules to go by just to stay unharmed, but you do not learn them until the next day.

[Annotator's Note: Throughout this clip Irwin Medway looks at photographs, mostly off-camera, and reads statistics from articles and books he has in a scrapbook.] Medway thinks his cadre of officers [Annotator's Note: in Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] had not seen combat. Medway came home and threw away everything khaki. He was very nervous and would pace around flipping a coin. He had no postwar syndromes. He would not go see Private Ryan [Annotator's Note: "Saving Private Ryan," 1998 American war film set during the Invasion of Normandy] for about a year. He realized how lucky he was and how easy he had it. The war made him realize that are some paths you take that you realize afterwards, maybe it was the wrong path. He knew he should be really good person and he thinks he has fulfilled that. Medway is more cautious today than ever. The service taught him organization. He is always looking for tomorrow which is not so great. Priorities change because families change. He has the greatest life. He left the service and got married. Her father owned record shops in Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. He took the wrong path. He could have attended any university on the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment], but he took the easy way out and went to work with his father-in-law. His wife had lunch with Frank Sinatra [Annotator's Note: Francis Albert Sinatra; American singer, actor, and producer] as a girl. He went to work for Columbia Records [Annotator's Note: American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment] as a salesperson. He was promoted to branch manager of New York state. He moved to Syracuse [Annotator's Note: Syracuse, New York] and was then transferred to New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. He went to Connecticut and ultimately Philadelphia. In 1982, prior to Michael Jackson's [Annotator's Note: Michael Joseph Jackson, American singer, songwriter, and dancer] "Thriller" [Annotator's Note: record album release 30 November 1982], they downsized. He chose to retire. He went to work for some other companies until 2003. He did volunteer work for the public schools, and he attends university classes. He was born in September 1923.

Irwin Medway encountered anti-Semitism in Tennessee. He was beat up by another soldier. It has something to do with music. It was broken up by a sergeant. He never saw the guy again. That was it. Infantry is very funny. He used to hear people say they would kill a lieutenant on the battlefield. When you are in combat, you want everyone alive. There is no revenge, and it is nonsense. You did not care if the guy next to you was Indian. Unfortunately, they had no African-Americans. If the guy next to you had your back, you did not care what he was. Medway had a signet ring he wore. When he left the hospital [Annotator's Note: after being wounded in Antwerp, Belgium, October 1944 while serving with Company L, 3rd Battalion, 414th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division], he was sent to an aid station and put in the pool [Annotator's Note: replacement pool]. He loved it because he could sleep on a cot. His finger started to swell from an infection, the doctor cut the ring off. He lost a gold bracelet his girlfriend had given him. He got a Bronze Star [Annotator's Note: the Bronze Star Medal is the fourth-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] does not have the G for gallantry. All of his other medals, everybody could get. Medway thinks that a lot of the volunteers early on, were due to the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. His brother was one of them. Medway talks to children now. He was discharged on Veterans Day [Annotator's Note: annual federal holiday honoring military veterans of American armed forces; then it was called Armistice Day; Medway was discharged on 11 November 1945]. If he goes into a restaurant today, and sees a man who could be a veteran, he asks. He tells the children to find out about their grandfathers and fathers and tell them they are proud of them. He does not feel he was influenced by the Depression. They never wanted for anything. He would have liked to have gone to West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy, West Point, New York]. He was a good soldier, and he knew why he was there. He only questioned commands a couple of times. He did what he had to do.